Re: [Json] Human JSON (Hjson)

You are quite right that there are a lot of solutions to this problem. 
The most known ones are JSON5 and maybe CSON. Others are not that easy 
to find though I remember at least three variants that shared some 
syntax with Hjson. Most of them, including Hjson, were started because 
there was no recommended format to be found.

On 2016-05-26 13:03, Peter Cordell wrote:
> For me JSON is too simple, and YAML is too complex.  I've tried to get
> into YAML a couple of times, but it seems to have multiple ways to do
> the same things, so I end up getting confused.  It clearly fails at at
> least one level to be human friendly.  Why JSON doesn't have comments
> eludes me.  JavaScript does, so missing that bit in the subsetting was a
> big drop off IMO.
>
> I'd love something that is more flexible than JSON, but less complicated
> than YAML.  While I might quibble about some of the choices in this
> proposal, the fact that it can be described as JSON with 7 lines of
> variations is a big win.
>
> What I find frustrating in this space is that protocols and
> specifications are the bread and butter of IETF.  And yet the IETF has
> put very little effort into developing 'tools' for this area (*).  And
> the really sad thing is that the reason is not because this is a
> difficult problem, but more that it is such a simple problem that
> everyone comes up with their own pet solution and they'd rather have no
> solution instead of someone else's solution.  As a result we end up with
> other groups second hand goods like XML and JSON.
>
> So I'd welcome it going forward in a form that would allow experience
> with working with the format and would be simple for a working group to
> adopt and put on standards track if they felt it was useful.  Perhaps as
> an AD shepherded individual RFC that can just be 're-badged' to put it
> on standards track if the desire arose.
>
> (* OK, we have ABNF, but that's the assembly language of protocol design
> and we should really be aspiring to higher levels of abstraction in this
> day and age.)
>
> Pete Cordell
> Read & write XML in C++, http://www.xml2cpp.com
>
> On 24/05/2016 22:36, Christian Zangl wrote:
>> JSON is used in a lot of places and has helped improve things like data
>> exchange and data storage. It is also used in areas it's less suited
>> for, like configuration files. People seem to prefer JSON for
>> configuration over YAML and other config formats.
>>
>> I started Human JSON (Hjson) because I found the experience frustrating
>> (for example missing/trailing comma problems, no comments). With Hjson
>> you get a superset of JSON that allows you to
>>
>> - add #, // or /**/ comments,
>> - omit quotes for keys,
>> - omit quotes for strings (terminated by LF, no escapes),
>> - omit braces for the root object,
>> - omit the comma at the end of a line
>> - add trailing commas and
>> - use multiline strings with proper whitespace handling.
>>
>> These changes should make it easer to read and write configs while still
>> preserving the power of JSON.
>>
>> Joe Hildebrand approached me with an idea to publish Hjson as a RFC. You
>> can find the draft here: http://hjson.org/rfc.html There are also syntax
>> diagrams and more at http://hjson.org/syntax.html
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
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>